


A man is not very tired, he is exhausted

by Etheostoma



Category: Ghosts (TV 2019)
Genre: Alison Tries to Help, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Captain/Havers, Character Study, Feels, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Memory is a Bittersweet Gift, The Captain Remembers, family is what you make it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-21 18:07:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30025770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etheostoma/pseuds/Etheostoma
Summary: The Captain blinks as Alison peers up at him expectantly.  "I fail to see the need for my morning run,” he finally tells her quietly, angling a glare that dares her to push further, "when there is never any chance of improvement."Understanding kindles, flaring bright as it sparks and then settling into a more bearable, muted flame. “Ah.” Alison makes an aborted attempt to reach for his hand, catching herself halfway through and instead curving her hand up and around to curl self-consciously at the back of her neck.
Relationships: Alison & The Captain (Ghosts TV 2019), The Captain/Lieutenant Havers (Ghosts TV 2019)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 53





	A man is not very tired, he is exhausted

**Author's Note:**

> This ran off in an entirely different direction than it began, and I am Very Pleased nonetheless. The Captain is one of my favorites, and inevitably I was going to end up writing primarily from his perspective. Hope you all enjoy! <3

After a while, it all gets to be quite monotonous.

0600\. Awaken to the sound of Fanny’s shriek as she plummets to the ground. Sit up, back cracks. Swing feet to the floor and stand, knees sounding like a tree about to hit the forest floor. Had he the wherewithal to care, the Captain might find it ironic that while death has certainly erased _some_ sensations, it only seems to have heightened the aches and agonies of other natures and inclinations.

He rises with a grunt, back popping into place, uniform immaculately pressed as always and hair and mustache neatly groomed and eternally graying. Dead is dead, and yet here he is still feeling every second of the years he lived—and the weight of the seventy or so that have followed.

Huffing out a sigh, he crosses to the window, sticking his head through the glass to peer out across the grounds.

It is early enough that dew still clings wetly to the grass and leaves that gleam like jewels on the trees, a hazy mist curling up from the ground as the evening chill quickly passes. The grass is made even more vibrant by the warm kiss of the golden sunrise as it crests the trees, and a fresh breeze is dancing just beyond the edge of the horizon. It is the kind of warm spring morning about which every school-aged child fantasizes.

By all accounts, it is precisely the type of day that would leave one refreshed and revitalized—that is, it would be if one were not a ghost.

Instead, the Captain feels nothing _but_ the ache in his bones, the creaking, cracking pull of his knees as he turns away from the sight. He can hear the birds and see the sun, read a calendar and a clock like any other man—but he has not felt the true touch of a warm spring day since well before his death.

“What I wouldn’t _give—“_ he muttered quietly. He doesn’t say the rest aloud, but the words that go unsaid resonate throughout his quiet room nonetheless—

—to feel the surge of fresh blood and the pounding of a heart and the satisfying pull of fatiguing muscles as he builds and improves and _finally_ finishes a faster lap about the house—

—to have to _open_ a door to step through it, to feel the firm wood of the door beneath the pads of his fingers—

—to feel the rush of air as it fills his lungs, mouth parted and eyes wide and lips a hair’s-breadth from—

With a stuttering gasp, he wrenches his mind away from that dangerous train of thought. “Quite enough of _that_ ,” he snaps to himself, nonetheless allowing himself a brief, pained, closure of his eyes as he snaps his back into form and grips his swagger stick. It simply won’t do for the others to see him in anything but the most official capacity. “Right.”

Internal clock ticking, he cocks an ear and jerks a sharp nod. 0700. He has wasted an entire hour with his maudlin thoughts.

“Captain?”

And then the door _does_ open, pushed inward by a tentative shove, Alison’s face peering concernedly through the frame.

“Alison!” He feels caught quite wrong footed, despite having familiar territory at his back.

“Are you alright?”

He blinks, again experiencing that disconcerting sensation of having a rug pulled out from beneath one’s feet. “Quite alright, yes. Fit as a fiddle, in fact!”

Her answering smile is skeptical, but kind. “Fair enough—got worried when I didn’t see you at the front door for your run,” she said by way of explanation, shrugging one shoulder up and maintaining that piercing, quizzical stare she has managed to master.

“I—“ Damn it all, in pondering the futility of his morning run he had clean forgotten about actually reporting for it. Defeat settles quietly about his shoulders, a heavy mantle weighted with the trappings of all of the years of routine that have already come and gone. “I failed to see the need,” he finally tells her quietly, angling a glare that dares her to push further.

Understanding kindles, flaring bright as it sparks and then settling into a more bearable, muted flame. “Ah.” She makes an aborted attempt to reach for his hand, catching herself halfway through and instead curving her hand up and around to curl self-consciously at the back of her neck. “D’you want to—“ Cutting herself off, she shakes her head and smiles wryly. “You know what, don’t answer that—I already know the answer.”

And he is suddenly grateful for Alison all over again, a burst of affection blooming from the dormant bud that ever resides within his chest. Rocking back on his heels, he flexes his hands around his swagger stick. “I thought I might go inspect the grounds,” he announced. “Let the others fall into their own schedules, break from the drudgery of the standard muster at 0900. You can put on some of those ‘cartoons’ Julian has been telling Robin about, or some such entertainment.”

“Oh, I think I can manage to sufficiently distract them,” she promises him, an impish light in her eye. Again her hand comes up, and again she catches herself just in time, fingers flexing against empty air.“You know I did hear one of Barclay’s dogs _way_ too close to the house last night—might be a hole in the fence somewhere. Think you might be able to find it, come up with a plan to properly fortify it against future invaders?”

“I know what you are doing,” he tells her, mouth twitching as he stares down at her from beneath furrowed brows. They lock gazes for a minute before he breaks, shattering like glass beneath a well-placed blow. “But yes—I think I might be able to offer some useful suggestions.”

He snaps to attention and steps off, crossing to the wall and passing nearly all the way through before he catches himself and pauses. “Ah, Alison?”

“Hmm?” She raises her eyebrows.

“Thank you.”

He does not wait for her acknowledgement—they have passed well beyond his daily dose of awkward, emotional discomfort—and instead glides clean through the wall and begins his solitary trek down the stairs. He pauses for a moment at the bottom, hearing Kitty and Mary giggling in the hall beyond, and, brow furrowed, instead steps through the opposite wall and drops the remaining twelve feet to the green-carpeted lawn.

For an indeterminate amount of time, he simply paces, following an inherent rhythm as he stalks along the perimeter of the grounds, stepping off meter after meter in an even, measured stride. His pulse is the cadence in his head, his heartbeat the thrum of the imaginary platoon of men following behind at his flank. Eyes sweep left and right, scanning, searching, always on patrol.

To fail to patrol is to fail in his duty, to let his guard down is to give in entirely and admit defeat.

To be defeated is to remember, to remember is—is—

“Blast.”

He halts, parade rest, and simply stands, hands clasped at his back, swagger stick clenched in between, eyes sweeping the grounds.

It is the year 2021 but in his mind it is a spring many long years before, a spring of war and weapons, combat looming, the bright green grass and fresh air tainted by the ever-present tang of gunpowder and acrid smoke. He sees soldiers marching across the sprawling grounds in formation, hears the clamor of male voices on the horizon. If he closes his eyes, he can almost pretend to feel the touch of the breeze that tickles the tops of the trees, smell the uniquely appealing aroma of standard-issue soap and a very particular brand of aftershave.

Inhaling sharply through his nose, the gesture pointless but instinctive, he opens his eyes and stares down exactly five-and-a-half centimeters into William’s eyes. Phantom air catches in lungs that no longer require breath to fill them, and his attempt at a gasp comes out strangled. He throws a hand up without thought, brings it to hover over the shoulder of the man before him, fingertips skirting the edge of Havers’ uniform coat. If he presses down, he will dispel his fantasy, fingers passing only through air and once again banishing William’s ghost back to the dusty recesses of his own mind.

And, isn’t that pathetic, a ghost haunted by a ghost of his own?

Instead, he stares openly, passes his eyes slowly across each and every feature, committing and recommitting to memory ever facet of that beloved form.

William’s mouth opens wide in that charming white smile, lip quirking in the corner, and he matches the Captain’s stare with with every bit of the same affection. His eyes wide and dark and guileless, silently saying everything that they never could quite put to words in life. The Captain forgets himself, lurches forward, grasps at those strong biceps and attempts to press his forehead to William’s.

The illusion dissolves, crumbles beneath his clutching fingers, and he is once again left alone with naught but his thoughts for company. Blinking, he marvels briefly at the wetness forming at the corners of his eyes--should not such a thing be wholly impossible?--and then scoffs, dashing them away with a curt swipe of his hand across his face. Affection--particularly of this nature--is a weakness. Outdated mindset or no, it is how he was raised, all he knows, the very _foundation_ of his discipline. To be a man is to be brave, courageous, to prove oneself for one's Queen and country and provide for those who cannot do so themselves. Sentiment, emotion--they are emotions best contained deep within the recesses of one's mind, never to be cast free to see the light of day.

Stepping off with his left foot, he forces himself back into his patrol. What good does it do to keep secrets long dead? Who does he protect now but himself and the shriveled mockery of a heart he keeps tucked deep within his incorporeal chest? The sun is at its zenith in the sky now, 1200 ringing true and clear to his intuitive sense of passing time. The morning has come and gone, but what is there to show for it? What is there _ever_ to show for it?

His eyes continue to sweep the grounds, but they do not _see_ , past and present blurring until he is left disoriented and all but unaware of his true surroundings. As such, he is caught entirely unaware when he suddenly finds the house looming before him, a dark shadow against a bright sky, the true heart of this self-perpetuating imprisonment. His mouth twists into a wry, bitter grin, and he gives the towering facade a sharp, mocking salute.

“That for me?”

Alison’s voice cuts brightly through his sour thoughts, slicing neatly through the cloud of gloom in which he has enmeshed himself to snake through the air and rap smartly at his heart. Though it does not beat, he is reminded of its presence at nearly every opportunity, and Alison’s kindness cracks his shell like an egg. Even the most well-constructed mask will eventually begin to falter, and though he offers a small smile in return to her teasing words, his eyes bear the weight of so very many years of regret.

“Alison.” His voice is curt, but it is not directed toward her.

She salutes in turn, managing to make the gesture, though decidedly _not_ in keeping with military form, genuine—and packed with _far_ more respect than he thinks he deserves. “O Captain, my Captain,” she replies, and though his lips purse and his brows furrow at the application of ‘popular culture’ _and_ an American poem, the gesture is not lost on him whatsoever.

“Alison?” This time his voice is reedy, thin in a way he desperately hopes does not make him appear timorous or wretched. His body carries him without thought to stand at the foot of the stairs, hands hanging at his sides and stick dangling from limp fingers. His hand twitches, curls up to his pocket to feel for a letter that is no longer there, and then relaxes and falls flat against his thigh once again. “Would you—that is—you have asked before, without actually _asking,_ mind, which I quite respect, but—“ He frowns, stops, clicks his tongue. “That is, Patrick insists, and I quite agree—or at least want to—it _did_ appear to ease Fanny’s mind—“

“Captain?” Alison’s head is cocked, her eyes focused in thought as she attempts to follow his rambling chain of non-sequiturs.

He steels himself and climbs the stairs to stand beside her at the open front door. “Right. Yes. Ahem. I—“ He makes the mistake of looking down at her, then, eyes sliding down the distance in their heights to settle on hers, and the _kindness_ there leaves him winded in a way even his physical exercise never could. They are bright, and wide, and though a different shade they see _through_ him in a way no-one has since William’s, and— “I know you are interested in the history of the house,” he begins, forcing words from lips that have no reason or means to be dry. He pauses, meets her eyes again, looks away sharply. “Would I—may I tell you about someone?”

His left hand flexes at his side, feeling phantom fingers slide into his own and _squeeze,_ his right hand rising to press as a fist against his mouth as he feels a pair of lips brush against his own, fainter than the breeze that stirs his companion’s hair. He coughs once into his fist, forces his hand down to his side, and looks her square in those all-too-knowing eyes.

“He was my, well--Havers. William Havers. He--I--”

And though he stammers and pauses, face implausibly flushing red, he feels a lightening of pressure in his chest, like that of a vice being released, and allows Alison to sit, and listen, and bleed him dry. For the first time in a very long time, he feels the brush of the warm spring sun against his cheeks--and in the back of his mind, a clock finally begins to tick.

**Author's Note:**

> Title and references blatantly transplanted from 'Dead Poet's Society'. Obviously not mine, but definitely a cherished favorite.


End file.
